Warlock Magazine

RANKINGS

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1. The Dervish Stone - 💀💀 Two Skulls (out of Five)

Attempts to beat: 10

As I take on my first amateur adventure (I'm classifying these Warlock magazine adventures as such in any case), I realize I will have to come up with a different style of scoring system. It really isn't fair to compare this kind of adventure to professionally published ones in my opinion. It's one thing to do something for the love of the genre and the pure joy of it with no expectation of monetary reward and it's quite another to do it with the goal of charging readers for it and hopefully making a profit. And while I do realize that there was prize money at stake here (at least in the case of The Dervish Stone), this is generally the exception as it pertains to this style of adventure. Now, I'm not saying professional gamebook authors dont have a love of gamebooks, or even that they don't particularly enjoy writing them. I'm sure most do. But once you start charging people for your content I feel you should be held to a higher standard and harsher criticisms should you not deliver with your books. I've decided to go with a standard 5 star rating system (or skulls in this case), although I do still intend to have a final ranking of these magazine adventures against each other. 

I realize this wasn't the first mini-adventure contained within the pages of Warlock magazine, but as the first 3 issues contained slimmed down versions of Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Caverns of the Snow Witch, and House of Hell, I'm not sure revisiting them at this point would add very much to my reviews of them, even though I am aware there are some differences. So I thus begin with The Dervish Stone by Paul Struth, who was Warlock magazine's first winner in a submit-your-own-adventure contest. This whole process actually has me very curious and I would love to hear from anyone who worked for the magazine during this time. Such things as how many submissions came in, who played them, who picked the winner, and how many of them were completely broken would make for some great Fighting Fantasy campfire tales. I also wonder if there were perhaps some hidden gems that have now been lost to time but I guess I will never know the answer to that one. 

Using the standard Fighting Fantasy rules at the time, the story here sees you playing as a generic wandering adventurer, who by chance comes upon a parchment telling of a diamond hidden in a lost cave somewhere in the Twin Sun desert. That doesn't really narrow it down much, but our intrepid hero decides to seek out this diamond anyway and thus sets off into the desert, stopping for some supplies in the village of Alasiyan first of course. 

One thing that has to be mentioned right off the crack here is the absolutely eye-rolling plagiarism of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It begins with Star Wars as the opening of the story sees you set out across a desert with twin suns, overcoming guards by controlling their minds and telling them "You don't want to search my backpack", a monster identical to the Sarlacc, and most egregiously of all, an encounter in a bar where two alien looking fellows come up to you and one of them says "He doesn't like you. I don't like you either!" as they attempt to start a fight with you. If you can play through all this without your eyes rolling to the ceiling you are made of stronger stuff then I am. For the longest time it was just the numerous Star Wars references, but near the end of the quest the Raiders of the Lost Ark scenes start coming on fast and thick. You need to retrieve the diamond by using a bag of sand as a counterweight against a trap, dive underneath a descending wall (what, you don't turn around at the last second to just barely grab your hat?), then outrun a giant boulder to the mouth of the cave from which you entered. I'm curious as to how old Struth was when he wrote this. Did he just not think anyone else had seen these movies? It's not like they were insanely popular or anything. Or did he perhaps just think that because people love these movies so much that it would be "like totally awesome to have the exact same things happen in a gamebook!".  

There is also a City of Thieves style random guess moment near the end of the adventure that everyone loves so much as you need to reach into a jar that has 3 sections, one of which contains a deadly scorpion. Pick the wrong section and you die. At least you have a 2 in 3 chance of getting this right your first attempt, but still, there is no information to go on that I'm aware of to help you with the choice, it's just a complete guess and there is really no reason for this to be here. Maybe he was trying to emulate Livingstone. 

One other thing I noticed is that you can play this adventure as a complete homicidal maniac. You are often given the option of just attacking anyone you come across with the adventurer seeming to have a particular dislike for guards just minding their own business at their posts. Speaking of which, if the cave containing the diamond was supposed to have been a "lost cave", why the heck does it have a guard standing out front? The cave was also supposed to contain "traps so formidable that no one succeeded in passing them all". From what I saw inside the cave, apparently no one even tried passing the traps as there was no mention of any dead bodies and someone also would have had to keep going back in to reset the traps from all these failed attempts. Although maybe this explains what the guard out front was doing there. (Resetting that boulder alone must have been a real bitch). 

The adventure does have some bright spots however. The best sequence by far is an air battle involving griffins, goblins, a giant and a dragon. It's quite exciting so it's a bit of a shame that it's spoiled somewhat by some completely unfair arbitrary deaths or fail-one-roll-and-you-lose sections. There is quite an interesting array of creature encounters in the story and it also provides some decent trial and error involving items that you can acquire within the village and how and where it is best to use them. And kudos to providing a crucifix then having no vampire to use it against. I thought a vampire was coming up for sure after finding that! (Crucifix or garlic means vampire is usually imminent right?).

Ranking: Difficult to rank because I don't really have anything similar to compare it to. If I'm being honest though, and even taking into consideration its origins, overall I didn't really like it. It has the odd good idea and moment, but there are far too many "fail one Skill or Luck roll or pick the wrong choice among two seemingly acceptable options and you instantly lose" moments, along with the blatant ripping off of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark for which the author should be embarrassed. I wonder if this submission won the contest because it was one of the only entries that was functional. It's not bad, but I hope there are better amateur adventures than this out there.

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2. Dungeon of Justice - 💀💀 Two Skulls

Attempts to beat: 23

So, on to the next contest-entry adventure, and what begins as a decent enough dungeon crawl eventually left me shaking my head at one of the poorest design decisions you will ever see. But first, the story. In this adventure we are playing a character accused of murdering an Elf Chieftain (having witnessed the actual murder then subsequently been found hovering over the body), and despite our protestations of innocence, the other elves predictably do not believe us. We then get introduced to their justice system (at least for outsiders), as we are cast into a dungeon and told we need to find a Golden Idol hidden inside. If we are innocent as we claim, we will be able to find the Idol and allowed to leave the dungeon and continue on our merry way. Not sure I completely follow the logic of their reasoning, but searching through a dungeon for items usually makes for good times and as opening premises go this one is pretty solid. 

The dungeon itself, while perhaps nothing special, gets the job done. There are several different corridors to explore and rooms to check out and just enough variety with the encounters to keep things interesting. In the early going I was having quite a good time mapping it all out, as mapping out a dungeon surely must be one of the best things about game-booking in general. There are some different items to be found, along with treasures such as gold pieces and a giant ruby. None of these items or treasures are required to complete the adventure (except for the Idol of course) which ultimately ended up being a bit disappointing. You don't know this initially obviously, and you are also told in the prologue that your character is a bit of a fortune hunter so it could make sense to role play it that way and try to lug out all the items and treasure in addition to escaping if you were looking for an added challenge. 

Unfortunately though, the adventure has its share of problems. There appear to be several editing errors that have you turning to incorrect sections which can make it maddeningly unplayable, at least until you figure out whats going on and either try to find the correct section yourself (tedious) or find the errata listed somewhere online. Editing errors are really nothing new in gamebooks so I wont hold these against the adventure too much, but jeesh, where were the people at Warlock magazine? Shouldn't they have been playtesting this? Also, the rules state that you can only eat provisions when you are told that you can, but then at no point in the adventure was I ever given the option to do so. I have a feeling this rule was just copied and pasted over and author Jonathan Ford may not have even been aware of it. Fortunately, stamina loss isnt really an issue (finding the stupid Idol is though), so not having any provisions available to eat isnt a problem. It's just another little indication that not a lot of care was put into the editing/playtesting process here. 

I've left the most aggravating part of the adventure for last and boy is this one a doozy. After many attempts of exploring the dungeon and coming up empty in the search for the Idol, thinking that there must be some room somewhere that I hadn't yet found even though I had run out of places on my map to look, it was only through sheer luck (and I suppose this is the only way to find it) that I "discovered" where it was hidden. Almost unbelievably, you are required to FAIL a Skill roll while swimming across a river. Pass the Skill roll and you can't obtain the Idol as you proceed on your way none the wiser. Seeing as how success is the desired outcome of an attribute check, why would you come back and keep trying to actually fail it? That's some Masks-of-Mayhem-alligator-orb level of crap right there! Heck, at least in Masks of Mayhem it wasn't a Skill roll but a random one, so even though it's unlikely you made the required number on any given attempt, at least you had some indication that something special might be located there. No such clue in this adventure as passing Skill and Luck rolls are usually what you WANT to have happen, therefore making this roll much worse. Having an attribute check that you are required to fail in order to obtain an item necessary for winning is awful design. Initially I was convinced that this must be another editing error and that the sections you were given to turn to if you passed or failed were switched around. This wouldn't be too much of a stretch considering the several other errors in the adventure along with the fact that for this particular Skill check, you aren't told what to do if you roll the same as your Skill score, only if you roll higher or lower. Reading the sections themselves though this sadly doesn't seem to be the case and you apparently are indeed intended to fail this roll in order to win. ARGHHH!!!!!

Ranking: Two skulls might actually be generous here as the required failed Skill roll all but ruins this. Still, I couldn't bring myself to give it a lower score because I actually WAS having fun in the early attempts while exploring the dungeon, searching for the Idol and any other potential helpful items, and mapping out every room and corridor. It was only once I finally stumbled upon the infuriating means by which you need to win the adventure when it lost the majority of any goodwill it had built up. I've given them both 2 Skulls, but The Dervish Stone gets the edge over Dungeon of Justice. ______________________________________________________________

3. The Dark Chronicles of Anakendis - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls 

Attempts to beat: 8

So apparently this is yet another adventure that was part of the initial Warlock magazine contest and I have to say, I would have picked this one over the first two. It has some problems yes, but in my view its issues don't conspire against your fun as much as the previous entries. The story here sees our character, the typical wandering adventurer, entering the village of Kokbridge one day to discover it is currently under the thumb of a local sorcerer known as Anakendis. This evil warlock has taken to demanding two maidens a week from the village (what he does with these ladies is left unsaid and perhaps that's for the best) lest the townsfolk face the consequences, and he has unleashed his Hell Hounds on the village as a demonstration to back up his threat. So, the good people of Kokbridge plead with you to take up their cause by seeking out and destroying Anakendis. Being a mid-80's Fighting Fantasy bad guy, he of course has an underground lair which you must infiltrate, and both in story and game design there are more than a few similarities to The Warlock of Firetop Mountain to be found here. 

One of the more obvious influences from Warlock of Firetop on offer is the key system. Like in that adventure, defeating the evil wizard isn't enough. To fully win you must also find a certain combination of keys that will unlock his chest where he stores his "Chronicles", which also need to be destroyed in order to ensure he does not return in the future. This was probably the best idea contained in Warlock of Firetop so I enjoyed seeing it put to use again. It's not quite as involved this time however, as instead of numbered keys, the keys in this quest are made of rare gems (diamond, emerald and ruby). There are only these 3 hidden throughout his lair and you will need to find the correct combination of 2 of these that open the chest. Having the keys made of gems instead of them being numbered gives this a slight Deathtrap Dungeon twist to the adventure as well. Somewhat unfortunately though, once you make it to the chest the first time, the adventure gives away what the correct combination is by having one of the 3 combination options you are given lead directly to section 200, which for anyone paying attention to these adventures means that this is likely the correct choice.  

The keys themselves are fairly well hidden and it might take several attempts to plot out where they all can be found. The cave system Anakendis lives in is nothing special, but there are a few different routes you can take to get to his chambers which provides a nice bit of exploration. The encounters within the caves themselves leave a little bit to be desired and none of them really stood out with the possible exception of the Astromancer. The battle against this character is quite unique as every other round he casts a random spell from a list of three. This kind of creativity in the combats is quite welcome and while these spells might make him a bit overpowered, thankfully he is not along the required route for victory. 

The final battle against Anakendis I felt was also well done and provided for a bit of strategy. First off, make no mistake about it, with him having stats of Skill=12 and Stamina=20, this is not going to be an easy fight. However, you do have some options available to you. There is a magical sword you can obtain that gives you a +1 to your Skill which you need to get anyway or you can't beat him. My strategy against him was also to choose the Potion of Fortune (two doses) at the beginning of the quest and save them until the Anakendis fight. The rules state they can be taken at any time, so I assume it's fair game to take them in the middle of the fight. Testing my luck every time I managed to wound him, I therefore was able to inflict 4 stamina points of damage per hit (barring a bad dice roll of course). This meant that even though my Skill may have been lower than his, I felt like I still had a fighting chance and thats all you can really ask for. There is also an amulet you can obtain earlier in the adventure that lowers Anakendis' stats considerably, but this is actually a tease as taking the route to acquire this amulet means that you miss one of the keys needed to open his chest and will lose the adventure anyway. 

On a related note regarding the magical sword needed to wound Anakendis, author Andrew Whitworth goes out of his way to explain that when this sword is acquired, it can take your Skill score over its initial level. Strange that an amateur author knew enough to make sure this was properly laid out when the creators of the Fighting Fantasy franchise themselves seem to have let this distinction fall completely by the wayside at times. There may be a bit of an oversight in another regard though as when you find this sword the text tells you that you discover a magnificent glowing sword without ever saying that it's magical. Still, I think it's safe to assume that this is the needed sword in question.

It's a shame that the final chambers of the caves seem to be a bit wasted. Once you make it to the pedestal room at the end of the cave system, you have 3 doors to choose from. One leads to Anakendis, one leads to his Hound Master, and the other leads to Traskaand (former resident of Kokbridge and Anakendis' new lackey). The latter two provide absolutely nothing necessary or useful and this feels like a wasted opportunity. Perhaps making the Traskaand encounter a bit easier (he is pretty tough) or given him a unique combat such as was done with the Astromancer and then having the magical sword in his chambers would have been the better way to go. Just a thought. 

A complaint from the previous adventure was that the rules state you can only eat provisions when explicitly given the option in the text but then the adventure never gave you the opportunity to do so. Thankfully here the author seems to have remembered this and there are a few spots where you are given this option. Not so helpful though is that along the required route for victory I only counted two such locations, meaning that the provision system is still somewhat underutilized. It also seems that Whitworth was a little confused when consulting his own map as there are a few section descriptions that don't make a lot of directional sense and this can make the adventure a bit difficult to map in areas. Sections such as having you travel along a passage then telling you that you have reached a "junction with another passage coming back the way you came" (?). This makes me wonder if Whitworth was looking at his own map of the lair sideways or even upside down at times when writing the text without even realizing it. 

Ranking: A step up from the first two adventures and with some tweaking here and there could have maybe even gotten another Skull. As it stands it's nothing too special, but I had fun working out the correct path to collect the necessary keys and magical sword along with what can end up being a fairly tense final battle.

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4. The Temple of Testing - 💀💀💀💀 Four Skulls

Attempts to beat: 7

These Warlock adventures are picking up steam as I go and The Temple of Testing by author A.E Arkle has been the best one yet. The story here sees you playing as an initiate in the vaguely named "School of Magic", ready to take your final test to determine if you are qualified enough to begin the study of practical magic. The test itself involves entering the Temple in question, which has been populated with all manner of dangerous creatures and traps, and finding your way out again. Failure of the test though, means death. Whoa! Even if one of the denizens of the Temple doesn't kill you, if you answer the final question incorrectly your tutor materializes to finish you off! Isn't that a little harsh? Anyway, it's a simple enough concept and it works pretty well as a nice change of pace from the normal kill-the-bad-guy type of quest. 

After two dungeon crawl type adventures in a row we get something quite a bit different here. The Temple is made up of a five-by-five square grid of rooms with one much larger room on the outside of each of the four sides. The really interesting thing here is that the adventure provides a free movement system and you can visit any room bordering the one you are currently in (once you deal with its occupants or traps of course) and are free to return to each room as many times as you like. The downside to doing this is that as soon as you leave a room, the creatures and traps immediately regenerate and you will have to deal with them again should you return. However, to ensure you cannot use this as a loophole to collect large quantities of any helpful items you may come across, the rules state that any beneficial items only reappear in their room if you have visited five different rooms before returning. So in short, anything "bad" repopulates as soon as you exit a room, and anything "good" only repopulates after you have been through five other rooms. The continuity problems usually brought forth by this type of free movement system actually have a plausible explanation for a change. Because this is a test run by the School of Magic and the creatures in the rooms are presumably there through being magically generated, it's acceptable that they would return immediately. Also, the types of creatures found within the rooms can be considered "random creature central" as you can encounter vampires or mummies in some rooms and orcs or ninjas in others. Once again though, this randomness actually has an explanation for a change in the form of this being a magical test and not some actual functioning location out in the world. 

In order to exit the Temple and succeed in your test, you will need to find 4 artifacts that have been hidden in different rooms, take them all to the correct chamber, place them each one at a time on the corresponding correct altars, and answer a final philosophical question. Despite the relatively small size of a 200 section adventure, I think I did more note taking on this quest than I did for the first 3 Warlock adventures I played combined and probably as much as I would do in a full length Fighting Fantasy book. I needed to carefully map out what each of the 29 different rooms contained in terms of creatures and their stats, along with any traps, penalties, boons, and of course most importantly, the locations of the 4 artifacts. Slowly uncovering the layout of the Temple and eventually being able to plot out what you feel is the optimal route when you finally get set to take your "attack run" is the real strength of the adventure and is very well done.  

The rooms themselves were quite varied and interesting and I never found myself bored at any point. The adventure also does quite well from a balancing standpoint. There are some very tough enemies to be found in some of the rooms such as the Ninja, Tulpa, and Snake's Head, and while you will likely run across them all at some point as you hunt for the artifacts, most of the tougher enemies are not along the required route for victory. And while I needed to fight MANY creatures in order to determine my desired route through the Temple, on my eventual winning playthrough I only needed to fight 3 combats (Gremlins, Orcs, and Bronze Warrior), although the first 2 of these had multiple opponents. Of these, only the Bronze Warrior could be a challenge but if you take the Potion of Luck at the beginning of the adventure you should be able to beat him as long as you don't have a rock bottom Skill score. 

Perhaps one of the most creative things about the adventure is how it incorporates the generating of your initial Skill, Stamina and Luck stats, along with your selection of your starting potion, into the story itself. This is ingenious and I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen it before this point by one of the more professional authors. The writing here was also quite good with some humorous lines thrown in such as if you lose to the Tulpa, then "the Tulpa pulps ya!", or by pointing out that in fighting a Mummy to the death, "the Mummy has a head start". 

As good as I felt the adventure was, it did have a couple of weak points, although thankfully nothing major. Probably the most annoying is that several of the rooms contain multiple creatures that you must fight, sometimes one by one and sometimes three at a time. Most of these creatures have very low Skill scores (as you would expect or you wouldn't last very long) so it results in a lot of busywork bookkeeping. This is compounded in the early stages by the backtracking you will likely find yourself doing, having to run through these fights all over again when you re-enter a room. I'm all for lots of combats in an adventure, but having to battle numerous low skilled enemies all at once is not what I have in mind and it can get somewhat tedious. The rules governing fighting three enemies at a time can also sometimes seem needlessly convoluted. Along the same vein, the section right near the end of the adventure whereby you need to place the four artifacts on the correct altars is tedious page-flipping personified. You place each of the four artifacts one at a time and each time you finish placing one, you are sent back to the beginning of the sequence and asked which ones you have placed and which ones you haven't. I'm not sure if there was a better way to do this but this process seemed to take far longer than it should have and didn't seem to flow very well at all.    

It's also not really clear when and where this adventure is taking place. References are made throughout to China, Greece, and Egypt so at first it's seemingly set on Earth. Not only that, but it alludes to being set in more modern times too as at one point you come across a "car-like" machine, so your character apparently knows what a car is. But then again, you are studying magic after all and the adventure concludes with your tutor hinting that there may be a quest for you and it involves the Crown of Kings, presumably the same one from the Sorcery series. This is a minor complaint as it doesn't really affect the adventure itself, but it can make it somewhat difficult to visualize the big picture here. Finally, it is a bit disappointing that you are an initiate in the School of Magic but the adventure uses no magic system at all, although this can likely be chalked up to the constraints of a 200 section adventure. 

Ranking: Easily the best Warlock magazine adventure so far with a highly enjoyable level of mapping and exploring along with some creative ideas. A.E Arkle did such a good job overall that it's an incredible shame if they weren't given the opportunity to write a full length Fighting Fantasy book (assuming that they weren't of course) to see what they could do with it.  

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5. The Floating City - 💀💀 Two Skulls

Attempts to beat: 7

So for the second adventure in a row we have one with quite a unique opening. The story begins with what I thought was a fantastically horrific setup. We learn that a Dwarf was once captured by a great Eagle and essentially tortured by it, being made to lie naked on top of her eggs to keep them warm. When he is eventually rescued by a Lord Karon, the Dwarf is so grateful that he enters his service. The Eagle is not done with the Dwarf however and tracks him down and recaptures him, killing all the Dwarf's travelling companions in the process. Yikes! To know that even if you escape, wherever you go this Eagle will eventually find you and drag you back to your living hell. What a grisly fate! So, believing that Lord Karon will richly reward you should you return to him his trusted servant, you decide to make a rescue attempt. A dying guard from the Eagle attack mentions "The Floating City" in his final words and not having any other leads, you set out to find this location, having to cross an icy wasteland to do so. 

From a design standpoint, the adventure is for the most part an item hunt whereby you will need to uncover the location of a checklist of items, then plot out the route that allows you to nab all the ones you need in one pass. The adventure does seem very short though and there are several sequences that have you turning from one section to the next with no choices to be made at all which is never a good thing, but seems even worse in a shorter adventure such as this. And yet again, as in one of the previous Warlock adventures, Dungeon of Justice, the rules state we may only eat provisions when specifically given the option, but then at no point does this ever happen. Cmon people! How many times are they going to do this? Fortunately the provisions aren't really required as there aren't all that many combats to be found in the adventure overall. The final fight is a bit on the difficult side though (even with the correct items), so you probably want to make sure you take the Potion of Fortune with you at the beginning and save it for this battle.

The adventure does however have one really great idea going for it (at least initially), that being a mechanic whereby if you have a transformation potion and a piece of an animal (such as a feather, or patch of fur), then you can transform into that animal. That's wonderful stuff! It's quite a pity then that this only really plays into the quest at the very end when you must decide what animal to transform into for the final confrontation. Even then, you are given 8 options as to what you would like to change into, but only 2 of the 8 are actually usable. The other 6 all result in instant death (including one where apparently author Ruth Pracy can't tell the difference between a snake and a fish). Why not use some of those filler paragraphs found throughout the adventure to flesh this out more? Another great gamebook idea almost totally wasted.

Credit needs to be given to Pracy for the setting, which does a good job of representing a harsh winter landscape. Although the Floating City itself is something of a letdown as apparently only a couple of beings even dwell here. It's more like the Floating Gas Station. The adventure does end though on a story twist involving the Dwarf that I didn't see coming so credit for that as well. Where I can't give credit though is for the final choice once the last enemy is defeated, which has to be one of the most "preachiest" and downright obnoxious endings I can recall experiencing. You are given a choice of 3 options as to what you would like to do once you have beaten the last enemy and seemingly completed the quest. You can decide to set off in search of new adventures, travel to Lord Karon to inform him of what has happened, or you can claim the Floating City for yourself. All of these seem totally acceptable to me and a lot of what you decide to do will likely come down to how you see your character and how you may be role playing them. Well, I guess the author didn't see it that way, because if you don't pick the option that they had in mind, then you are "wrong" and reproached for not picking their answer. I found this to be incredibly condescending. 

Ranking: The opening setup has a lot of promise, and the animal transformation idea is great, but unfortunately a lot of this is wasted by the time it's all said and done. Overall though it's not bad (save perhaps for the awful final choice), and the usual fun is here to be had in locating all the needed hidden items, but it's quite short even by these magazine adventure standards and it contains a lot of filler sections. I put it right in the middle of the first 5 adventures so far.  

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6. Fortress Throngard - 💀💀💀💀 Four Skulls

Attempts to beat: 9

Well, this adventure sure surprised the heck out of me. Upon noticing before beginning that this adventure was only 172 sections in length as opposed to the typical 200, I was expecting a shorter and perhaps simpler design. What I ended up experiencing was anything but. In fact, despite having nearly 30 fewer sections, this adventure seemed far longer and more intricate than the previous entry, The Floating City. The story here sees us playing as a squire of the good knight Sir Falfax, who has disappeared while travelling through the Ergon forest. This makes it likely that he has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, Throngard, who has his fortress in the area. Our character decides to make a rescue attempt of Sir Falfax, but seeing as how a frontal assault on the fortress would be suicidal, we devise a plan to wander the forest and hopefully get captured ourselves so we can thus break Falfax out from within. An ingenious plan indeed, and knowing we are going to be searched and stripped of all equipment and weapons after our capture, we cunningly manage to hide a picklock and a knife on our person (where exactly we hide these items is perhaps wisely left unsaid) that escapes notice during the expected search. Starting from our cell in the lowest level of the fortress, we then begin our own search for the captured knight. 

What author Tom Williams has done with the design of the adventure is really quite impressive. There are essentially 3 levels to Throngard's lair which includes: 1) the lowest dungeon level which has cells containing various other trapped individuals along with guardrooms, a kennel containing the guard dogs, an armory, and a storage room. 2) the middle level which has a kitchen, a wine cellar, a couple more storerooms. and a great hall. 3) the uppermost level which contains the living quarters for Throngard (and for some personal friends of his) along with his vast library. In order to rescue Sir Falfax and escape, you need to acquire a laundry list of items scattered throughout all 3 levels. For an adventure such as this with its fewer than usual number of sections to have well over a dozen items to collect (some useful, some not) helps with the sense of discovery found all throughout the quest and the items themselves are well integrated into the story. Oftentimes though, an item you need to progress on one level is located on an entirely different level and the adventure incorporates this by having a very well done free movement system all throughout the fortress. Actually, I hesitate to call it a "fortress" (even though it's in the title of the adventure) as it came across to me as more laid out like a mansion. I found the middle and upper levels in particular had a very "House of Hell" vibe to them due to the rooms you find on these levels along with their inhabitants (ghosts, vampires, and even a butler). As such, the Dragon you find located in the hall seems a little out of place. Another interesting aspect is that in order to escape you also need to release a large group of other prisoners in the dungeons so that they can "storm the gates" and help you to slip away. (You are essentially using them as cannon fodder but hey, all's fair in love and escaping from dungeons of evil lunatics). Even a mistake on your part doesn't necessarily mean failure, as you can find yourself being recaptured by the guards and dumped back into your starting cell (stripped of all the items you had collected up until that point of course). I had a great time drawing out the map of the fortress, labeling all the rooms and what they contained, discovering what items were needed to pass each hurdle, and finally putting it all together into the path that I ultimately needed to take that found me wending my way back and forth between the various levels and rooms of the lair like a master infiltrator.  

As much as I enjoyed it, there were a few niggles with the adventure but nothing really serious. The rules section where you are given the information regarding your starting equipment, provisions, and choice of potion all turns out to be a bit irrelevant as you lose all your items except your picklock (what is the difference between a picklock and a lockpick anyway?) and knife at the start. Weapons and provisions can actually be reacquired within the fortress itself but to my knowledge the potion you choose cannot so you might as well take the Potion of Fortune to begin the adventure and down both measures immediately, as taking either of the other two potions would be a total waste. The adventure can also at times be a bit confusing with its directional instructions (I found the top level to be the most guilty of this) and not always make it really clear which direction you are heading when you leave a room (especially if you need to leave in a hurry), but once you've played a few times you can identify where you are based upon the descriptions of the rooms you come across. As with most adventures that have a free movement system, you can also come across the odd inconsistency (you can keep killing the butler several times in one playthrough for example) but in many cases you are given instructions on what to do if you have visited a room once already. There is also a preponderance of very low skilled Guard enemies (one Guard even has a skill of 3! How the heck does this guy even manage to lace up his boots?) which as usual, results in several encounters that have some near pointless busywork dice rolling. 

In contrast to the various low skilled enemies you come across however, you can also encounter a very high skilled pack of Demons and an incredibly high skilled Dragon. If you don't have the necessary items with which to fight these creatures, you are probably done for which is likely the intended result. I did however appreciate the fact that even without the required items you at least had a chance to survive if you begin with a high enough skilled character and use luck judiciously during the fight to increase your damage output (although in the case of the Dragon you would still need to be incredibly lucky).  

Ranking: This adventure is one big puzzle to be solved (tough dice-rolling combats are definitely not what this quest is about) and I mean that in the best possible way as I had a blast solving it. Fortress Throngard thus edges out The Temple of Testing for the top spot among the Warlock magazine adventures so far. The really great structure including the free movement system, the multitude of useful items to collect, and several interesting encounters make this a winner. As with The Temple of Testing and its author A.E Arkle, it would be a great shame if author Tom Williams wasn't given a crack at writing a full length Fighting Fantasy book to see what he could do with it. I had a really good time with this one and it's definitely recommended.  

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7. Rogue Mage - 💀💀 Two Skulls

Attempts to beat: 2

On I go to what is certainly the blandest of the Warlock magazine adventures I've yet played. Right from the start, Rogue Mage doesn't begin with the most interesting of premises (although the prologue is well written). This quest sees us playing as an adventurer who is in the process of being sentenced to either death or amputation due to their thievery. A second chance at keeping life and limb is provided by the Magician's Guild, who promise you your freedom should you be able to track down and kill a former member of their order who has gone "rogue" and spends his time conducting unnatural experiments. Having little choice but to accept the offer, the Guild gives you directions to the abandoned mine where the mage, Galthazzeth, has set up shop and so in you go to track him down and eliminate him. So, it's a standard dungeon crawl to find and kill the evil wizard. Ok, well it could still be good if author Graeme Davis comes up with some interesting encounters and design elements. Unfortunately though, he doesn't. 

The worst thing the adventure has going against it is the enemy encounters. Travelling through the mine you encounter mostly Goblins, but also Antmen, a Beetle, and a Snake. Not exactly thrilling stuff. Galthazzeth himself is given almost no personality or interesting development, and while the first encounter with him at least has him with the ability to cast a random spell at you, the second time you catch up with him you just kill him on the spot in one sentence. No final fight with him whatsoever. The actual final fight of the adventure is the best one though and is the only real good one in the quest (although that's not saying much). It comes against the Slithering Horror, a suitably horrific giant slug with human faces that would have been right at home in Beneath Nightmare Castle (of which this magazine adventure was published before). You have to fight against both tentacles of this monster at once and it's a fairly well done encounter.

There is one other encounter that deserves special mention but not in a good way and that would be the Clone Slime. This gelatinous blob has stats of Skill=4 and Stamina= 30 and as if that wasn't bad enough, after a few rounds of combat is spits forth two mini-slimes with stats of Skill=3 Stamina=5 that you have to fight two at a time. Once you defeat these, then you have to do it again....and again. Six of these mini-slimes have to be dispatched before the main Clone Slime is spent and dies, but because the Skill stats of these enemies are so low, you are certainly not going to lose (and very well may not even take a single hit during the entire process). Have mercy! Talk about your pointless dice rolling. This is one of the most poorly designed encounters I've had in these adventures and it's just tedium personified.   

In addition to the mostly low skilled enemies you come across, the adventure is also rendered very easy by the inclusion of extra Stamina and Luck potions you can pick up within the mine (in addition to your starting choice of potion) along with a +1 Skill shield and a +1 Attack Strength sword that you can find. You could argue that these items are present to give a low skilled character more of a chance to win, but the trade-off is that it makes a moderately skilled character incredibly strong and a starting high skilled character virtually unstoppable. Normally, instant deaths could mitigate this but as far as I know there are no instant deaths in the adventure (at least that I came across anyway, although it only took me 2 attempts to beat this one so maybe they do exist somewhere). 

The mine you are exploring is also pretty basic in its design and there is very little of interest going on in it. It does however incorporate a free movement system (which is becoming quite common in these adventures) but doesn't do a very good job in taking the revisiting of rooms into account as you could, if so inclined, keep returning to certain rooms in order to stock up on more and more potions. The adventure also teases the existence of a maze at some point in the quest, as we learn that the source or Galthazzeth's power (a stone which must also be destroyed in addition to the wizard himself) lies at the heart of this maze. So when we finally come to this maze, do we get to explore and plot out a way through it? Nope. Just pass a Skill check and you automatically find yourself at the stone in the middle of the maze. Disappointing. 

There is additionally a strange add-on to the adventure in that it can be played using Dungeons & Dragons rules as well as those for Fighting Fantasy. Whenever you need to fight a creature or Test Your Luck, an extra set of stats is given below the Fighting Fantasy stats for those playing using the D&D rules. Full marks for trying something new I guess but this seems a bit unnecessary and I believe having to incorporate two sets of rules may have just ended up taking away time from Davis that he could have been using to construct a more interesting adventure. I wonder if playing using the D&D rules possibly makes this adventure a bit more challenging (if it makes it even easier then I don't know what to say to that). 

Ranking: Yes it's on the boring side, but it's not terrible. It's a by-the-book-dungeon-crawl-kill-the-wizard quest that also happens to be very easy. There is really nothing here to help it out in terms of story, design, or atmosphere either. It's near the very bottom of the Warlock adventure rankings, but at least it didn't cause the infuriation that Dungeon of Justice did so it slots just ahead of that one.

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8. The Land of Changes - 💀 One Skull

Attempts to beat: 9

Ouch. I hope this isn't a trend developing but for the second adventure in a row we are given a very weak effort. This entry is a sequel to author Ruth Pracy's earlier adventure, The Floating City. While that quest took place in a land of perpetual Winter, this one takes place in a land of perpetual Autumn (kind of). I can only assume Pracy is intending to write two more adventures taking place in the lands of perpetual Summer and Spring but I guess I will get to those in the future, if they exist. Oh boy, this one though. Starting with the prologue of the adventure, which is a bit of a mess. I assume it's trying to be mystical and ethereal in discussing the seasons and how Summer and Winter winds constantly fight over the blooming and retreating of the buds and how blah blah blah. This felt more like a steam of consciousness to me than anything else. The prologue additionally tells us that we don't know where we come from, then proceeds to immediately forget that and tell us that we are from the land of Summer and wish to get back there! So after all that, the quest is about as simple as it gets. Just cross from one side of the land of Autumn to the other. This land of Autumn is also known as "The Land of Changes" which seems to contradict the point of this world being that these areas DON'T change. Whatever. This is one of the worst openings to an adventure I've come across in some time.  

The layout of the adventure is about as short as you can imagine one being. Keep trying different arbitrary options until you acquire the 2-3 items you need to complete the quest. This would be fine if there were some interesting design choices or story elements occurring but as in the previous adventure, Rogue Mage, there really isn't. At least that adventure had some combats. Where the heck are the combats in this quest? I only came across two in the whole adventure and only one of those is on the required route. And even that one is a joke! The required fight is one you have against the Redcap, a monster who dyes his cap red with the blood of his victims (Yeesh. If it had said he dyes his socks with the blood of his victims I'm not sure it would have been any more odd). The Redcap has an item you need (his tooth) but even this one fight is really a cheat as you only have to fight him for 6 rounds, then take a Luck test. Pass the Luck test and you win and get the tooth, fail it and you die. It's not going to kill you in only 6 rounds so this fight is basically then just a Luck test. Even the Stamina loss is pointless as all your stats are pumped back up to maximum a few sections later. And you don't even need the Stamina for anything else anyway! The couple of other items you need to complete the quest are for the most part just given to you without you having to do anything to uncover or earn them. There is some serious Starship Traveller level of player inactivity going on here. 

A-ha! So THAT'S how Bart keeps his cap so red!

Lets see, what else. Well, at one point in the adventure you can acquire a magical horn, that when blown is supposed to bring you help in your moment of need. Problem is, any time in the adventure you attempt to actually use it, then the game is over in one way or another and you've lost. There is even a very frustrating moment when you are asked if you wish to use the horn when confronted by some seemingly unbeatable spectral warriors, then if you attempt to do so you are told "Alas! This is the one place the horn cannot help you" because apparently the spirit warriors can steal sound, and you then die. That information really should have been provided somewhere in the quest (or at least hinted at) before we made our choice. There are additionally a couple of points in the adventure you can attempt to use garlic on a creature only to be told that "This isn't Transylvania!" before you die. Wait....my character knows of Transylvania? What world is this adventure set in anyway? 

The key encounter in the adventure is probably the Moss Maiden, and before entering her nest you are told that this is a place of "good". But then the Maiden wont help you unless you bribe her with a gift. Even going so far as insulting you if you don't give her the "correct" gift. Moving on, near the end of the adventure you come to a pillar in a clearing and need to pick one of the letters carved onto it and press said letter. Your options are A, J, L and Z. Only one of these is correct and the other three lead to instant death. Now, just a few passages earlier you are told by the Moss Maiden that her name is Lina and you should remember the letter of her name as it may help you. So naturally when you get to this pillar you would choose the letter L right? Nope. L leads to instant death. One of the other letters is actually the correct choice, and why? Barring this being a typo, I still have no idea as I was only able to figure this out by using trial and error on all the choices (and dying several times). Pracy also once again repeats a tactic used in The Floating City by having an abstract choice near the end of the adventure where you need to predict what they would have done if you wish to succeed. In this case, you are asked if you want either "your greatest wish" or "your heart's desire". Guess what happens if you don't choose the one they have in mind? Game over, restart and try again. Gimme a break!

Ranking: This is barely a gamebook at all and is more akin to a pick-a-path adventure. Not a lot of it makes much sense and Pracy once again likes to present you with arbitrary options, then reproach you if you don't take the option that they would have picked. Pracy's writing itself I actually found to be quite good but that's really the only positive thing I can say about this quest. This adventure drops right to the bottom of the rankings to this point.

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9. Deadline to Destruction - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 8

So far with these Warlock magazine adventures Ive been comparing them to each other, but with this one I really have no choice but to compare it to Appointment With FEAR from the main series because....well, if you've played both of them you will know why. Appointment With FEAR (from now on referred to as AWF so I don't need to keep typing that out every time I mention it, which will be frequently) was a book that I felt had one of the most ingenious designs of any of the FF books (at least through the first 30 of which I have played). However, even though I enjoy the superhero genre as much as the next person, I thought the story was a bit weak and many of the jokes and names were on the eye-rolling side. This adventure, Deadline to Destruction by author Gavin Shute, is an unabashed copy of AWF in almost every way. Granted, it's a sequel so some similarities are to be expected, but everything from the rules, mechanics, design, humor, and even the story seems to have been transferred over with new villains pasted in. This can be good or bad depending on your feelings towards AWF (which I thoroughly enjoyed), should you have played it. 

Following on from your defeat of the Titanium Cyborg in AWF, your superhero character known as the Silver Crusader this time finds himself up against a new super-villain known as the Dynamo, who possesses electricity based powers (think Electro, the Spider-man villain) and wishes to take over the world. In a plan remarkably similar to that of the Titanium Cyborg, if the leaders of the world do not turn over control to him, he intends to destroy Titan City by the end of the week as an example of his power. We thus have 3 days to locate the whereabouts of the Dynamo and bring him to justice before he can enact his destructive plan.  

The design of the adventure is almost exactly the same as that in AWF. The initial choice of superpower from among 4 options (Super Strength, PSI Powers, Enhanced Technological Skill, and Energy Blast) makes its return and is definitely one of the similarities to AWF that is most welcome as it provides a good deal of replay value, especially for a shorter magazine adventure. Once again you need to acquire a couple of clues (address and room number) over the course of the 3 days the adventure takes place or you wont be able to locate the hideout of the Dynamo by the last day, and you will fail. As with AWF, the adventure wisely makes the villain who is holding one of the necessary clues differ depending upon which initial superpower you select. The second clue is held by the same villain no matter which power you have and somewhat unfortunately, whether you acquire this clue or not is left to a 1 in 3 chance nearer to the end of the story. Still, you will probably need to go through the adventure at least several times before you locate everything you need, therefore you can use trial and error to determine the correct choices without it becoming too frustrating. Also as with AWF, there is a special hidden item you can locate (the Energy Drainer in this case) that makes the final confrontation much more do-able (although still quite tough). Additionally, Hero points, the system whereby you earn a certain amount of points for every heroic deed performed, returns as well and once again I found this mechanic completely "point"-less. (Heh heh, I can do the bad puns too!). I also began to wonder why you never seem to lose any Hero points for ignoring people clearly in need. Not going to the assistance of a crying little girl for example would seem to be a pretty large strike against a superhero one would think. 

As to the story, despite the obvious threat (which for some reason is laughed off by most of the citizens of Titan City even though they were just similarly threatened by the Titanium Cyborg who was shown not to have been bluffing), our character doesn't really seem to be going out of his way to locate the Dynamo. In fact, he only finds the clues he needs by happening upon various bad guys in the course of his normal daily routine, who then reveal this information once defeated. Why are we going shopping for example when we have much more pressing matters to attend to? Several of the story beats from AWF are also repeated here, from us perusing a previous FF book on a store shelf to an incident involving a frozen swimming pool. 

On the subject of the various bad guys, Titan City seems to be one gigantic lunatic asylum, with super-powered villains in every department store, burger joint, and newspaper stand. Perhaps this is why the citizens of Titan City do not take the Dynamo very seriously, because these madmen are literally on every street corner. Imagine living in a city that had anywhere from 10-15 different serial killers active at any given time. I guess eventually the numbness just sets in. 

Speaking of the villains in the adventure, they are a bit of a step back from those found in AWF, but I suppose this is to be expected. The ones I came across included:

- The Cuttlefish, aka Peter Salmon- the slimy "marauding mollusc" is actually one of the more original creations in the story.

- The Fly aka Richard Gears, international film star. A human fly villain and the puns with this character "fly" fast and furious. 

- The Firefly - who can set anything on fire just by touching it. No idea why he is doing what he is doing in the story, I guess he's just nuts?

- Jaws - Ok, "the man with the metal mouth" is clearly a direct rip-off of the identically named henchman from the James Bond films.

- Mr Obesity - I have to admit, this one made me chuckle just due to the sheer ridiculousness of it. Probably a shot against fast food consumption too as you find him at a burger joint.

- The Spider - The "arachnid avenger", a human spider character this time as opposed to a fly. At least this villain is provided some motivation (he is in the the sewers desperately trying to create more like him, I suppose for company).

- Mr Frosty - Yikes. The meeting with this Mr Freeze clone is almost a direct repeat of an encounter from AWF, complete with identical location.

- Doctor Change - a shapeshifter who runs a kiss-o-gram service! You couldn't make this stuff up....unless you are author Gavin Chute of course!

- Elastic Eddie - a Plastic Man/Mr Fantastic (or Elongated Man if you want to go for a deeper dive) based stretchy character 

- Dynamo - the main super-villain of the adventure already mentioned earlier. While seemingly based on the Electro comic book character, he also had me thinking of the identically named and very similarly powered character from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Running Man", although that movie was released after this adventure.

"Clap if you love....DYNAMO!" Too bad he doesn't sing opera in this adventure.

The biggest problem with the villains is that we are generally given no background information on them or what their motivations are. A couple of them will have the clues to the location of Dynamo so presumably they are working for him or with him, but otherwise most of them just seem to be wandering the city for no apparent reason.

The writing of the adventure is for the most part solid. And while Im all for bad puns, a lot of the humor seems to come from taking famous people and places and changing a few letters or mashing their names together (Richard Mears, McWimpy's, etc.) which reminds me of the jokes I used to find in "Mad" and "Cracked" magazines. That said, I'm a little more tolerant of it this time around, either from it being the second time I've encountered it, or from me finding these jokes more appropriate for an amateur written magazine adventure.  

Finally, I was quite surprised at how difficult this adventure appears to be. It took me 8 attempts to defeat (only one attempt less than AWF itself) using the Super-strength power and this seems to be far and away the easiest power to beat the book with. I tried to beat the adventure again using the ETS power this time and found it quite tough. Pretty much all the enemies in the adventure have high stats and most failed Skill or Luck tests, of which there are several, result in automatic failure. I actually appreciated this difficulty as it can be hard, but not ridiculously so, and it thus makes you feel like you earned your victory 

Ranking: If I hadn't played AWF before playing this, I would have said this was as brilliant as all get out. But as much fun as I had with Deadline to Destruction, it can't be ignored that it's almost a carbon copy of AWF. Still, if you are going to borrow this heavily from an adventure, Appointment With FEAR is an excellent one to choose. Indeed, if I were to ever attempt writing a gamebook myself, it's probably the design I would try to imitate as well. And while I quite enjoy the superhero setting, I would like to see this design approach applied to a more original theme. That said, I still slot Deadline to Destruction in the top 3 Warlock adventures so far as I did have quite a bit of fun with this, and that's really what matters isn't it? 

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10. The Temple of the Pharaoh - 💀💀💀 Three Skulls

Attempts to beat: 12

And with this, the Warlock magazine adventures come to an end. Fortunately, they go out on a pretty solid note. For the second adventure in a row we have an Earth-set quest, this time seeing us playing as an archaeologist searching for a long lost Egyptian temple. The prologue has us successfully locating the temple, but also crashing our single-seat plane in the process. So, with nothing to do but wait for the search party to arrive, we decide to check out the temple and get a head start on cataloging our findings, which hopefully includes lots of treasure. Not surprisingly (at least to the reader if not the character), a temple once ruled over by a pharaoh known as "King Terror" is going to contain all manner of deadly trap and horrific creature. The goal here is another one on the simple side, just make it out alive, of which the character finds himself trying to do not 5 seconds after they have set foot in the place! 

This is an adventure heavy on the puzzle and collecting of necessary item side as opposed to the combat side. There are a fair number of combats within the quest to be sure, but the vast majority of them can be bypassed should you possess the correct item, or in some cases you can just choose to avoid them altogether. On my winning playthrough I only needed to fight twice, and both were quite easy (and both these adversaries, the Dazzled Statues and the Scribe, had the exact same Skill=5 Stamina=8 stats).  Fortunately though, the locating of the necessary items is quite enjoyable. The majority of these items are located in the underground maze section of the adventure and compared to some of the weak-ass mazes I have encountered in gamebooks of late, this one actually lives up to the name. You are given directions as to which way you turn at each intersecting passage and really need to pay close attention should you wish to head in your chosen direction. I do feel that author Tom Williams cheats a little bit in this regard though. At one point you can find yourself turned around after an encounter and just have to pick a passage at random. I guess thematically this makes sense, but does feel like a bit of a dirty trick. There was also one example where I exited a room only to find myself immediately at a crossroads that my map indicated should be on the other side of the maze. Still, this was a rare moment and overall the maze was quite fun to plot out. 

The best thing the adventure has going for it is the writing and atmosphere which are really well done. Williams throws references to Egyptian gods at us fast and furious and they really help to immerse you in the situation. All the encounters you have are also quite apt, although I did find myself wondering at times.....just what was everybody else in the temple actually doing there? For instance at one point you encounter a couple of Greeks in ancient garb who apparently have been turned into slaves by the Egyptians. So wait, did we go back in time when we entered the temple? There are also various gods wandering the halls and courtyards of the temple and while they are very well described and help greatly to add to the atmosphere, it's never really made clear what their purpose for being there is. Id like to think there was some time-warping type situation going on but it's never explained and seems to be left open to interpretation. We also stumble across the notebook of some previous adventurers who met a grisly fate within the temple, and this was a really great inclusion. It reminded me of the discovery of journals and reading about how others met their end while exploring various ruins in the video game Skyrim. 

I have to say though, the amount of instant deaths in this adventure is a little over the top. This is especially true once you exit the maze and begin to make your way through the second courtyard. This whole sequence is one big puzzle (including a riddle from the Sphinx itself) and this in itself is great. However, just about any wrong move from here on out results in instant failure and while I'm ok with instant deaths in general due to them being avoidable in the future, and also that they allow you to try new things on subsequent playthroughs, when there is an overabundance of them (particularly right near the end) it can get a bit frustrating. Especially when you have completely exhausted all possibilities in the preceding areas of the book and keep encountering these deaths. Thankfully, once you know how to navigate the maze section you can shoot back to the end pretty quickly but I still would have liked to have seen these instant failures dialed back a bit. 

One other thing to note is that it is possible for a high skilled character to brute force their way very quickly to almost the end of the adventure. If you take the door in the first courtyard, and manage to defeat the three different headed Gods in the great hall, you bypass the maze section entirely (which is the meat of the book), and by making smart choices from then on you can proceed all the way to the final meeting with King Terror. You will eventually be stopped by lack of possessing a needed item located in the maze but I felt this was interesting to allow a high skilled character who also gets good dice rolls to make it so far and so quickly. I wonder if such a design idea could be implemented more often in the future as it could allow a player who rolls up an initial powerful character to change tactics and attempt a blitz attack on the gamebook. 

It's a great shame that the Warlock magazine adventures (and indeed the magazine itself) ended here. The last two adventures in the range, Deadline to Destruction and The Temple of the Pharaoh, were really quite good and were both a departure from the standard fantasy fare. Ive long felt that (perhaps counter-intuitively) Earth-set gamebooks actually open up far more possibilities for the medium, and it's rare that I haven't enjoyed them. 

Ranking: A close call between this one and Deadline to Destruction, but ultimately I have to give the superhero adventure the edge in the rankings. Still, The Temple of the Pharaoh is very well written and despite the odd frustration, is an overall fun puzzle to solve. This is definitely in the upper half of the Warlock magazine adventures.